As mobile phones and other mobile electronic devices become more technologically advanced and include more features, so have the protective cases used to protect these devices. To prophylactically protect such devices from damage or breakage, protective cases have been devised to reduce the risk that a mobile device may break if it is dropped or otherwise exposed to an impact force.
In particular, two types of materials have generally been employed to reduce the impact force on a mobile device, namely, elastic or resilient materials that absorb impact forces (“soft cases”) and fracture-resistant plastics (“hard cases”). Mobile device cases typically include one or the other of these materials, or include both a softer resilient gel-like skin surrounding a harder plastic shell. Such mobile device cases typically include various openings to allow access to features of the device. In particular, many mobile devices have integrated cameras on the front and/or back of the device. As such, corresponding openings in the mobile device case allow the camera to operate while the mobile device is disposed within the case.
However, many mobile device cameras include an electronic flash element adjacent a camera lens to better illuminate the subject of the image. Owing to the lens' proximity to the flash on mobile devices, images may often appear hazy as bright light from the flash interferes with the image capture process. Adding a case around the mobile device with a camera may also create flash reflection and impact the dispersion of light from the flash, resulting in overexposure of the photographic images. Also, when light from the flash reflects off the mobile device case surface, it causes the color of the photograph to be tinted with the color of the cases if the case is any non-black color. This is typically not a consideration with stand-alone cameras, as the flash is often separated from the lens by a divider or other separation element integrated with the camera. However, correcting this problem with existing mobile phone cases that simply provide one aperture for both the lens and the flash remains an issue.
Therefore it is desirable to have a portable device case and associated elements that addresses the issues with existing mobile device cases discussed above.